


Her shadow

by amuk



Series: The Road To Life [10]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: 31_days, F/M, Fear, Gen, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 05:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/pseuds/amuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke is everywhere, the shadow at her feet, and Sakura can't tell if it will engulf her or leave her to drown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Day/Theme: November 24 // behind a forced smile, I harbor a grown shadow

He doesn't just appear in her dreams now. Not that he appears there as often as he used to, this creature from the abyss, but he still does all the same. She can make out each feature—the cold eyes, the straight lips, the marble skin. He isn't a god, like they all make him out to be. Instead he is a stone statue, frozen and unfeeling, and this is what she finds when she closes her eyes.

 

She fears she's turning into him, little by little. With each patient that dies, with each limb she cannot save, she loses a piece of her heart. Not that she doesn't try each time to improve, not that she doesn't take each break to work harder.

 

(There is anger and worry and suffering and _I am weak, I can't do it, I need more practice_ —and she can hear the voice of a twelve-year-old boy over her shoulder, pushing her to train longer, further, to push her limits beyond what it should be. What it is.)

 

-x-

 

Sakura can almost see Sasuke in the trees when she's running. There he is, zipping past the trees, a dust figure on the dirt path. She follows him, just as she always does, urging her feet to move faster.

 

Now he's flitting from branch to branch, graceful and lithe and this comes to him with ease. Her own pursuit seems lazy, her limbs are cluncky weights that drag her down.

 

So she searches her memory for him—this comes too easy, he's everywhere now. At the store, at the school, at the hospital. On the roof, on the training grounds, in the piles of freshly cut apples that lie ruined on the floor. He laughs, that confident and degrading snort, and she sees his cocky grin in the mirror.

 

Sakura's not that bad, not yet. She still is kind, she still is careful, and she still is herself.

 

Then she finds herself lying, manipulating Naruto to do what she wants, and half-wonders if Sasuke hasn't already corrupted her.

 

-x-

  
She tries to imitate him, a copycat amongst copycats. If she had the sharingan, she couldn't have done much better. For now, her strides grow longer and her temper more tightly reined.

 

It's not enough, not really. He isn't perfect, just as she isn't, but his flaws bear more heavily than her own. She has always been impatient, it just increases, and when she explodes it is an earthquake. There are tremors and rocks shooting everywhere, her friends ducking for cover, and she can only stare at the mess after and wonder why.

 

Her reflection is now one of fire and night, a starless sky shining down on her. The truth is only told when convient, her sleep reduced to two hours each day, and she overtaxes her body constantly. She won't be that weak girl anymore. She won't be that girl who loved and broke and couldn't piece herself together on her own.

 

Instead she grows a wall, leaving a hole with which to view the world, and tries to get by with that. 

 

-x-

  
She has dreamless nights now, dark and empty, and all she can see are the shadows within her, trying to get out.


End file.
